but there's no reason why you'd expect that the price of anything would stay at the exact same ratio it was 30 yrs ago.
The increase in prices of real estate is demand and supply driven, which implies that way more people got way more richer than you in the intrim 15 yrs. And not to mention some bad gov't policies that prevented an increase in supply, while demand increased, and you see high prices.
I am specifically saying that homes in my area, and most others, have risen in price at a MUCH faster rate than incomes. My example was meant to describe that situation, not just "standard inflation".
In the software business, which government has so far not interfered with, prices have declined to zero (literally) with lots and lots of revolutionary software being developed.
Famously, software doesn't take any more resources to build and share than a few electrons and a laptop, so not quite the same market as homes which require a massive amount of resources to build.
Can any software men/women here comment on how many votes they can buy?
The 1% win no matter how we design the housing market. They don't need to thumb the scale